Although there had been no public announcement that he would speak, Gehrig planned some remarks with Eleanor. But he walked — in an uncertain gait — onto the field without a piece of paper. Whether he had left his speech at home or in his locker remains a mystery. If there had been a written speech, it is surprising that Eleanor had not pasted it into one of the scrapbooks she had meticulously filled to record his career and their precious few years together.

Gehrig’s performance as a speaker that day was as remarkable as any he had as a player. And it was quite a career: a batting average of .340, 493 home runs, 1,995 runs batted in and a lifetime O.P.S. of 1.080, third in major league history to Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. He had played in 2,130 consecutive games until his finale on April 30, 1939 — when he acknowledged that his once-mighty body had betrayed him with unyielding cruelty.

So he stood, wobbly enough that Manager Joe McCarthy worried he might fall, in the summer heat between games of a doubleheader between the Yankees and Washington Senators.

When that moment was described by the screenwriters Herman Mankiewicz and Jo Swerling nearly three years later in their script for “The Pride of the Yankees,” they wrote: “The roar of the crowd is like a sustained note from a mighty organ. Lou waits for it to subside but it doesn’t. For him, this is crucifixion as well as triumph, because he knows he’ll have to die twice and perhaps the worst ordeal for him is that little death known as Goodbye.”

If Mankiewicz and Swerling’s words struck a hyperbolic chord, Gehrig’s did not. They were filled with gratitude for the people in his life: Eleanor, his parents, his mother-in-law, his Yankee managers, his roommate Bill Dickey, the New York Giants and the stadium’s groundskeepers.

Gehrig offered some perspective later that year after he had begun working as a member of New York City’s Parole Commission. With his condition rapidly deteriorating, Gehrig put his name to a syndicated article (almost certainly ghostwritten) that explained what he felt was a lifetime of thankfulness: for his parents, for making his high school football team, for attending college, for signing with the Yankees, for Eleanor.